


Tell Me Why Again?

by papesdontsellthemselves



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Fights, HERE WE ARE AGAIN, Happy Ending tho, M/M, Oop, sprace, they're bad at communication, with awful tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 15:46:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16768123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papesdontsellthemselves/pseuds/papesdontsellthemselves
Summary: spot and race fightthen make upthen fucking talk about it for once





	Tell Me Why Again?

**Author's Note:**

> this ain't edited chiefs  
> originally on my tumblr @papesdontsellthemselves  
> i post so much there go check it out

Race couldn’t even remember why they were fighting at this point. Some trivial thing no doubt, that escalated into a screaming match. Typical. If they went to a psychologist, or talked to Albert, who was a psychology major, they would probably come up with some fancy explanation as to why they always fought like this. Probably something about repressed childhood anger and bad coping skills and all that Freudian bullshit.

The reasoning didn’t matter as Spot shouted at him, spit flying from his mouth as he gestured wildly and without purpose. Anger thrummed loudly through every vein in Race’s body and his ears were ringing as he let Spot’s words bleed back into his consciousness.

“And I’m so sick of always being the bad guy! Of always taking the blame!” He seethed, eyes glinting furiously.

“I do not put all the fucking blame on you!” Race shouted back, adrenaline driving his voice to a higher octave.

“Bullshit,” Spot spat, “You always play the fucking victim, Antonio.”

Race froze, livid and horrified. They crossed all kinds of lines while fighting, but his name was an entirely new boundary. Spot knew his association with that god forbidden title his father had given him. He knew how much it fucked him up to hear it- especially in an angry atmosphere much like the one they were creating now.

He clenched his fists at his sides, driving his fingernails into his palms, “Don’t you dare fucking call me that! You know how much I-”

“Oh!” Spot exclaimed, a manic laugh intermixing with his wavering tone of anger, “There he goes again! Playing victim! Feeling all bad for himself!”

Race huffed out a disbelieving laugh, stunned that Spot was taking it this far, “Well, you ain’t a saint either, Sean! You’re so fucking bent on playing tough guy all the time! You drag down everyone around you, you realize that, right? You and your toxic masculinity. Afraid to be seen holding your fucking boyfriend’s hand in public!” his voice was bordering shrill by the time he was finished with his rant.

Spot set his jaw, his voice dangerously low as he answered, “You know why I don’t like to hold hands when we’re out. You fucking forced it out of me during one of your hissy fits, do you remember, Tonio?” 

Race flinched and Spot scoffed. Race did remember. It was after their group had gone bowling and Race had tried to intertwine their fingers between games. Spot had pulled back abruptly, busying himself with his soda. Race had finally snapped that night, furious that his then boyfriend of nearly six months still had refused to display the fact that they were dating. He had accused him of being ashamed and yelled at him for nearly an hour about how little he was putting into the relationship. It was then that Spot had broken down, finally admitting to having a homophobic father, that had instilled an ever-present fear of being outed into him after so many years of mental and physical torment, before finally being put in foster care. Race had apologized, but neither of them had completely come back from that incident. It probably wasn’t healthy. This probably wasn’t healthy. No, this definitely wasn’t healthy.

He loved Spot more than anything. He wanted to protect him, to show him that. But both men had so much trouble communicating their issues with both themselves and one another that by the time it had all piled up, it was too late and they were taking out their anger on one another. It was a habit that needed to be broken. 

“You can’t even do me the courtesy of answering?” Spot sneered.

Race flicked his eyes back to Spot’s, growing angry once more, “Shut up, Conlon.”

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” Spot punctuated his statement by hitting his thigh with his fist. Race could tell he wanted to punch something else, the wall probably, but he had learned a while back that that was not going to fly with their rental bills, “You should at least-”

He was cut off abruptly by Race surging forward and connecting their lips, deepening the kiss for a moment before pulling back.

They stared, breathless at one another. Spot’s eyes were swimming with leftover anger, confusion, and pain, and Race softened.

“We need to stop this,” Race said, a note of finality in his voice, “We can’t keep doing this. We’re going to crash.”

Spot averted his eyes to somewhere just to the left of Race’s shoulder, “I know,” he murmured.

“We always do this. We let things bottle up until we’re testy and annoyed at everything and then the littlest thing sets us off and we blow up. It’s bad for us and it’s bad for the relationship. Do you even remember what we were mad about?”

Spot hesitated, “Uh, I got mad because you didn’t get the mail.”

Race ran a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath, “Case and point. It was a tiny fucking thing and yet we spiraled until we were throwing toxic waste at each other. Boyfriends don’t do that.”

“No, they don’t,” Spot said, then whipped his head up, a new fear in his eyes, “You don’t wanna break up, do you?”

Race shook his head, “No, I don’t. But I do think we need to seriously reevaluate how we handle things.”

Spot nodded, pacing over to the couch and sitting down. Race followed, sitting next to him and resting his forearms on his knees.

“How do we do that?” Spot asked, voice tired.

“We needa start talking to each other,” Race said, “Were you really mad at me for not getting the mail, or was something else bothering you?”

Spot paused for a moment, eyes hard and focused on the rug underneath his feet, “I dunno, I think I’ve just been stressed about everything that’s happening with Medda and her cancer and Jack kinda got mad at me on Saturday because I forgot to pick up Smalls from her kindergarten and yeah, I don’t know, like you said. It kinda piled up.”

Race reached out a hand, allowing Spot to take it in his own time, “Thank you for telling me. I’m sorry you’ve been stressed and I’m here for you.”

Spot started to run his thumb over Race’s knuckles subconsciously, “I’m sorry I called you by your, uh, yeah. And I’m sorry for everything else I said.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Race said, sincerely, “I shouldn’t have brought up the PDA thing when I know why you react the way you do. And I shouldn’t have thrown any of the other shit I said at you, either.”

Spot shifted, looking at Race for the first time, “I, uh, are we good?”

Race nodded, “I think we are if you do?”

“I think so, too.”

“Okay, I’m glad,” Race said, “But, next time, we need to talk to each other. I need to do better about it, too, not just you. So if one of us is starting to feel stressed, or something’s bothering us about the other person, we need to bring it up, okay?”

Spot squeezed his hand, a ghost of a smile on his face, “Okay.”

Race smiled, “I love you, Spot.”

“I love you too, Race, really,” Spot brought Race’s hand up to his face and kissed his knuckles. Race pulled him in and hugged him in return.

“Look at us,” Race praised, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth, “Being mature and talking about our feelings.”

Spot snorted, “Don’t push it, Higgins.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, asshole.”

“Numbnuts.”

“Asswipe.”

“Cornfucker.”

“Oo, that’s a new one.”

“I know. I was proud of it.” 

Both boys laughed, the tightness that previously plagued both their chests loosening. They were going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> should i post more of my one shots?


End file.
